"He's never received any letters or photographs of Atiya, so there's no way that he knows how she is."

Detective Superintendent Phil Owen added: "We're working with a range of international agencies in order to find out who may be harbouring her, but it presents its challenges and problems and hopefully this is now the time to tug at heart-strings and generate information from the public."

He argued Anjum "will convince himself that she's looked after" but that he couldn't know that.